Draymond Green is responsible for this, full stop. With 6:47 left in the first half on Friday night in San Antonio, his team down 23 in an NBA Cup group game it would never lead, he wound up and ran a forearm through Victor Wembanyama's back from behind, knocking him out of bounds. The officials reviewed it, upgraded a loose-ball foul to a Flagrant 1, and specifically cited his wind-up and acceleration into Wembanyama's back. There is no basketball reason for that play. It was frustration with a jersey number on it.
Jim Jackson called it "not a smart play" live on the broadcast, and he was being generous. A grown man sprinting at the back of the league's most valuable young player while his team gets buried is just lashing out. Wembanyama's own reaction landed harder than any outrage could: asked about it after San Antonio's blowout, he shrugged it off with "Not much. I mean, it's not surprising." When the kid everyone wants to protect already expects this from you, Green has already convicted himself.
The crowd loses the plot from here. Everyone with eyes agrees the shove was ugly. The real claim going around is that it proves Green deliberately targets people and turns into a wrecking ball whenever Stephen Curry sits. People are also calling the league cowards for not banning him. That leap is built on vibes.
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RatingStart with the actual ledger. This was Green's first flagrant foul of the season. He had three of them across 68 games last season. He was ejected on November 2 after a scuffle with Dillon Brooks and the Suns, and his career includes real, serious discipline. But the specific claim fueling this, that there's a documented spike in his ejections and techs whenever Curry is unavailable, is a story people enjoy telling. Nobody's actually produced the number. Curry left the Nov. 11 loss to Houston with an oblique abdominal tear and is expected to miss at least a couple of weeks, with Kerr saying "Concern is high." One flagrant two games into that stretch does not a conspiracy make.
The darkest version of this take, the one that says Green's suspensions have cost Golden State in the past, is just wrong on the record. His 2016 Finals suspension and his 2023 first-round suspension both came in the middle of deep playoff runs the Warriors were already in. Inventing a history where his temper has torpedoed seasons is doing exactly what you're accusing him of: reaching for a result the facts don't give you.
RTGThe honest read is boring, which is probably why nobody wants it. A single hard foul, already penalized, in a game that was decided before halftime, doesn't establish premeditated intent to injure. Basketball is a contact sport played by furious competitors. He still has to answer for the foul. Judge him on the shove in front of us, not a theory of who he is.
And the thing that happened is enough. The NBA already has one ejection on his season sheet. If this becomes a trend, the progressive-discipline machine exists for exactly that, and he's earned every step of it. But you don't get to pre-convict a man for a mythology because you've decided a blowout loss needs a villain. Green handed you a real, ugly shove on November 13. Punish him for that. The rest is you writing fan fiction and calling it evidence.
